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Thursday, 3 April 2014

Book: Casualties of War by Ioana Visan

I received a copy of Casualties of War in exchange for my review. This is an intermediary story between A Victory That Counts and Ordered Restored.

In the aftermath of the events of the attack in Victory That Counts, Liana is brought up on her actions, particularly related to the use of Vampire blood on the Pandurs. Her sense of victory is shortly quashed when she learns that her once faithful guard, turned new breed vampire, Spanu, has kidnapped Jesse. Without meaning to, Liana gets stressed out, and knowing that the new-breeds would want to use her love for Jesse as leverage, she allows Max to shatter another of her beliefs regarding how vampire powers affect the Little Council.

As with the other 3 books of The Impaler Legacy that I've read, I've been shocked by the depth that Visan manages to get to in such a short word count. This isn't a long story (though it is an important part of the series), but the depth really makes you think that it is longer.

There are no characters added to the series in Casualties of War, which is quite often the down fall for short stories (as in introducing too many characters). At this point in the story it feels as if I know Liana, Max and even General Nour, which makes this addition to the story quite shocking (poor Liana!) and it means that not a lot of time is needed to introduce the characters.

This is definitely a series that needs to be read in its entirety, if you read them as stand alone stories then they just wouldn't work!